


i've got you (printed on my bones)

by dreamweavernyx



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, betty is elle woods if elle woods had gone to midtown high, gratuitous brooklyn nine-nine crossover, now with multimedia inserts!, peter is a damsel in distress but thats ok, powerful women!, rated T only because of mild swearing, social media!fic, spiderman: far from home compliant, women helping women!, women taking charge and fixing shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-22 01:12:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20865518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamweavernyx/pseuds/dreamweavernyx
Summary: Even despite the best efforts of Mysterio's crew and their smear campaign, Spider-Man is still New York's friendly neighbourhood hero, and New York remembers. (New York protects her own, after all. Sometimes, New York just needs a little reminder - one MJ is more than happy to deliver.)~It’s a week After Mysterio, and MJ is reminded anew of how hard it is to date a superhero, especially one who has enemies with a grudge. The large screen that had played the clip from the Daily Bugle has since switched back to broadcasting Spotify ads, and everyone’s staring at Spider-Man, who seconds ago had just landed in their midst with an armful of shrieking teenage girl, and who’s currently perched on top of the nearest traffic light.“Um,” he squeaks, and even though the voice modifier built into the suit she can hear the rising panic in his voice. Then there’s a whoosh, and he’s flipped away, backflipping and leaping until he’s nothing more than a red-and-blue dot in the sky, disappearing around the silhouette of a distant skyscraper.





	i've got you (printed on my bones)

**Author's Note:**

> Title and theme song for this fic: [Still New York - MAX (feat Joey Bada$$)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QvGfCOqSy8).
> 
> This fic has a minor-ish crossover with Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but knowledge of B99 isn't necessary to enjoy the fic.
> 
> As always, thanks to the amazing irrationaljasmine for betareading!
> 
> //Update (4 Oct 2019): Multimedia inserts made and coded by the amazing, amazing [presumenothing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justjoy/pseuds/presumenothing)! You are the greatest ;u;

It’s a week After Mysterio, a week after the most batshit-insane school trip MJ has _ever_ been on, and MJ knows three things. One, Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Two, Peter Parker is the world’s shyest, gentlest puppy of a boy. And three? It’s _adorable_.

MJ doesn’t do cute. MJ doesn’t do honesty and feelings and all that crap. But Peter bumps his hand against hers as they leave the airport, fingers hovering against her wrist in a gentle question, seeking permission, and she fights a smile as she curls her own fingers up, slips them between his, and it’s something.

She knows that it’ll be hard dating a superhero. She’s seen Peter stumble into Decathlon practice or math class with the odd scrape or bruise (and even on a couple of memorable occasions, a black eye), always waving it off with some odd excuse or two. She’d wondered for a brief time if he was a drug dealer, but she knows the truth now. It had terrified her, running out of the Tower of London and onto the bridge, watching him limp out from the wreckage of abandoned cars, blood and grime and sweat all over his face like the most gruesome war paint, clearly trying his best to ignore the pain. It had terrified her, knowing that she might be running out to see Peter unconscious. Peter, heavily injured. (Peter, _dead_\- she always cuts off the train of thought there.)

It’s a week After Mysterio, and MJ is reminded anew of how hard it is to date a superhero, especially one who has enemies with a grudge. The large screen that had played the clip from the Daily Bugle has since switched back to broadcasting Spotify ads, and everyone’s staring at Spider-Man, who seconds ago had just landed in their midst with an armful of shrieking teenage girl, and who’s currently perched on top of the nearest traffic light.

“Um,” he squeaks, and even though the voice modifier built into the suit she can hear the rising panic in his voice. Then there’s a _whoosh_, and he’s flipped away, backflipping and leaping until he’s nothing more than a red-and-blue dot in the sky, disappearing around the silhouette of a distant skyscraper.

The crowd’s beginning to murmur, and MJ ducks her head down, slips away before someone remembers that she’s there and tries to engage her in conversation about what just happened. She knows what had just been broadcast is false – “Mysterio” had been the mastermind, she’d found the hologram projector that proved that his heroics were nothing more than a show. Just like she knows Peter would never order the drone strike th<i>at terrorised London, would never had ordered drones specifically targeting his friends and his co-worker guy who was in love with his aunt-

_Oh, shit_, she thinks, her thoughts grinding to a halt. _His aunt._

She doesn’t have May Parker’s contact in her phone, and she doesn’t want to distract Peter while he’s escaping, so she calls the next best person she can.

“Leeds.”

“I- uh- MJ? Oh god, the _Bugle_ clip-”

MJ takes a deep breath, lets it back out, and slips into an alley, leaning against the cool stone. “Peter’s aunt,” she says. She’s trying hard not to let her voice tremble, reminding herself that _she’s cool, she’s aloof, she’s fine (she didn’t just see a terrorist spew lies about her friend and reveal his secret identity for all to know)._ “They know who he is now.”

“Oh, _Force_,” Ned yelps, like the thought’s just occurred to him. “Oh god, this is bad, this is-”

Ned hangs up, and MJ’s left staring blankly at her phone as the bland beeps of the dialtone continue to play. She takes a deep breath, in and out. She texts Peter – _are you safe, is May safe_ – and then shoves her phone back into the pocket of her jeans.

It’s no big deal. It’ll blow over. It’s no big deal. She heaves a second breath, slips out of the alley, and begins the long walk home.

~

  
  


A HERO’S DYING BREATH: SPIDER-MAN THE TRUE CULPRIT BEHIND DEVASTATING LONDON ATTACK

**J.J. Jameson** | _30 minutes ago_

Last week, the world collectively mourned the death of Mysterio, one of Earth’s finest new defenders rising up in the wake of the Blip. Selflessly leaving his home in another dimension, Mysterio came to protect us from terrible elemental beasts that left only death and destruction in their wake. However, in defeating the final elemental fusion-beast, Mysterio heroically gave his life in a last stand on the Tower Bridge in London, defeating the beasts for good.

Today, previously-unreleased footage of Mysterio’s last moments show a much more sinister truth behind the great hero’s death. New York delinquent-turned-vigilante Spider-Man, jealous of the spotlight now shining on Mysterio, had staged a massive drone attack to try and “save the day”. Not only did he cause widespread destruction in the city, Spider-Man also brutally murdered Mysterio in the course of the drone attack, wiping out his competitor for superhero fame once and for all.

All this only goes to show how unstable Spider-Man, now revealed for the first time to be 16-year-old Peter Parker from Midtown High, can be with almost unparalleled power in his hands. Can we truly trust someone of Parker’s age with the fate of the world?

READ MORE…  
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Who is Spider-Man? The child behind the mask | 27 minutes ago  
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View all comments (2,693)  


~

“MJ, honey, have you seen the news?” greets her the moment she walks into her house, and MJ scowls.

“It’s fake news,” she snaps, and immediately regrets it when her mother steps out from the kitchen with a frown.

“It’s bad news, that’s what it is,” Martha Jones says, spatula in one hand and a perfectly-arched eyebrow conveying skepticism and disappointment all without having to say a word. “There’s video footage of you swinging all around the city with that… that _vigilante_ hooligan, you know.”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you see on the news,” replies MJ, and she’s so, _so _close to her temper fraying, it’s been a long and harrowing day, and she can feel the vertigo again, the vertigo that’d swamped her when Peter had swung them up their first building, the vertigo that’d left her cold when she’d watched the broadcast in the middle of Madison Square Garden. “He- I would _never_ be friends with someone who could do something like that in cold blood. He was framed.”

“Sounds an awful lot like one of your conspiracy theories,” her mother says, but the disappointment fades from the set of her shoulders and reveals the worried creases in her eyes. “I know you’ve been a good judge of character in the past. It looked so real, though. On the news.”

It _did_ look real, and MJ knows that if she hadn’t known what had really happened, if she didn’t know what Peter was like, she might just have believed the footage. “Technology’s improving,” she says dully, voice harsh.

There’s a sigh and a rustle of cloth, and her mother comes up to her, tucks MJ under her chin like she used to do when MJ was ten. She has to tiptoe now, because MJ’s taller than her, but it’s comforting, and MJ breathes in the familiar scent of cinnamon-spice for a moment, before pulling away.

“That news broadcast was wrong,” MJ says, softer now but still as mulish. “It’s exactly like one of my conspiracy theories – I just need to find out how to untangle it.” Her mother sighs, but doesn’t sound convinced, and MJ does her best to put it out of her mind.

Eventually she goes up to her room, and there are six messages on her phone. The first four are from Ned.

star wars nerd hey mj, i called happy and he says may’s with him peter too he says he’s going to hide them in stark’s secret country house for a bit before people start getting violent?????? he says people might try to kill peter???

mj chill, leeds. no murder talk in his household. only problem-solving talk. star wars nerd mj this is a HUGE problem can we even fix it mj would you rather do nothing and leave peter to fix it himself? it’d be over in a week, he’d mess everything up. we’ve got to fix it for him, duh.

Ned doesn’t start typing for a while, and MJ quickly flips to the other message.

spider-dweeb happy’s taking us to stay with ms potts and tony’s kid for a bit, we’ve got may with us he says it’s going to be safer mj good.

She hesitates midway through the next message, fingers hovering over the keyboard as she thinks. It’s only been a week of… whatever _this thing_ she has with Peter is, but it feels terrible to know that he’s somewhere out there with people after him, a smear campaign waiting in the wings, and her here in her bedroom unable to do anything. MJ’s used to being in charge, used to being the changemaker, and to feel this powerless is not something she wants to get accustomed to.

mj i’m glad you’re safe. spider-dweeb i’m sorry mj for dragging you into this mj dweeb. it’s not your fault.

There’s a pause, and Peter isn’t typing back. She can imagine him hunched over his phone with a frown, trying to find some way to take the blame for this, too. It’s something she’d noticed even back when she was watching him, back since they were freshmen and he was chasing after Liz Toomes during homecoming.

Peter apologises a _lot_. Sometimes even for things outside of his control. Sometimes, knowing now that he’s a superhero, MJ wonders if this is his way of trying to compensate for the power he’s been given, by shouldering the burden of others’ worries for them. (It's a terrible habit. She makes a mental note to tell him tomorrow- oh. She might not see him tomorrow. Or soon, even. A small part of her flinches at the thought, but she squashes it down mercilessly.)

spider-dweeb i messed up though i trusted him too quickly mj peter. it’s not your fault mysterio was a massive dick. we’ll figure something out. this will pass. just focus on staying safe. spider-dweeb okay ):

She imagines him in her mind’s eye, eyes wide with a slight downturn, giving her his best impression of a kicked puppy, and a corner of her mouth twitches upwards involuntarily. It’s like everything’s changed, and yet nothing’s changed, between them since that hug on Tower Bridge, and it’s hard to know that he’s stuck in a house on the other side of the state, hiding from the very people he’d fought so hard to protect not so long ago.

_People are ungrateful asshats sometimes_, she thinks.

mj i mean it. really don’t worry about it. spider-dweeb it sucks that im stuck here ):< mj dork. the sooner this blows over the sooner you can come back. so lay low for now. i don’t know what i’ll do but i’ll think of something. leeds too. spider-dweeb DON’T DO ANYTHING I WOULDN’T DO mj got it. so basically anything goes spider-dweeb hey now mj you’re an all star spider-dweeb alksjfdlfkj youre the BEST

And it’s been a long tiring day, but MJ can’t help but smile a little at that.

mj glad you know it.

~

alice @irongirl523 · 5 minutes ago  
gosh, #dailybugle gets trashier every day. this mysterio dude literally surfaced last week, and they’re playing him up like the next iron man.

alice @irongirl523 · 4 minutes ago  
i mean don’t get me wrong, i don’t want to sound like a spider-man apologist or anything, but seriously…. mysterio isn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread, okay. we don’t need a million tribute articles about how great he was. WE GET IT, ALREADY.

Replying to @irongirl523  
spideywatch mod #1 @webdesign · 3 minutes ago  
“spidey apologist” um are you saying you actually believe that spider-man did the stuff the daily bugle said he did?? our friendly neighbourhood spidey??

Replying to @irongirl523  
spideywatch mod #1 @webdesign · 3 minutes ago  
[ Image: A grainy photo of Spider-Man crouching down at the mouth of an alley, petting a stray dog in one gloved hand, looking completely absorbed ]  
this spidey????

Replying to @webdesign  
alice @irongirl523 · 1 minute ago  
i mean… nobody’s come out and said the footage is fake yet, right? it’s not like i WANT to believe that the superhero who reps my city is actually some psychopath, but i can’t say it’s NOT a possibility…

~

Ned shows up at her door the next morning. This alone is enough to freak MJ out, because _seriously_, nobody knows where she stays. Nobody. But Ned takes one look at her flat stare, flat out ignores her bunny house-slippers and awful bed hair from a night of tossing and turning, and pushes past her into her own house.

“We need a plan of action,” he says, and turns to gesture at the other person in the doorway. “So I brought the big guns.”

It’s Betty Brant. MJ is even more at a loss. After a solid minute of staring blankly, force of habit kicks in and MJ waves them into the kitchen, groping around the fridge for a drink fit to serve company, and comes up with only half a carton of oat milk from the back of the fridge. (Somebody needs to go grocery shopping, and she makes a mental note to bully her sister into doing it later.)

She turns, armed with the three most serviceable mugs that aren’t still sitting in the dishwasher, to see Betty seated at the kitchen table, already pulling out sheets of charts and colour photos, along with a pencil-case full of highlighters.

“…And you thought _I_ was crazy about AcaDeca,” she manages, and Betty rolls her eyes.

“These are the levels of engagement Spider-Man’s gotten on social media and Google since the video broke,” she says. “The bad news? It’s all anyone’s talking about now, and I don’t think it’ll stop anytime soon. The good news? Not all of it’s bad. The Daily Bugle doesn’t have the best reputation for good reporting, and some people aren’t willing to buy into all their hyperbole, but it _is_ hard to argue with supposed video evidence.”

“It _was_ a good job on the edit,” MJ admits grudgingly. She’s watched the video over and over more times than she can count, trying to find the flaws that would reveal the video to be fake, but all she’d succeeded in doing was making herself feel sick at the idea that anyone could make Peter, harmless Peter, out to be some kind of attention-hungry criminal.

Betty sighs. “It’s obvious to us that it’s fake, because _obviously_ Peter would never call a lethal drone attack down on the girl he likes. But nobody else knows that, so we’ve got to find some other way to persuade people that he’d never do something like that. Hence,” and she reaches out for a couple of bullet-point lists, “guerilla attacks.”

MJ peers at the top one, which is labeled _Whisper Campaign_. The first few items on the list say _holograms – any way to show that the big monsters were fake? Emphasise Spider-Man’s nature and youth, would never willingly hurt another person, let alone ALL OF LONDON._

Betty notices her looking, and smiles. “I have quite a few fake Twitter accounts,” she says. “All set up to look like real, different people. I was thinking of having them sow small seeds of doubt in their individual circles. We need to remind people that just because something looks real, doesn’t mean we should trust it immediately.”

“Um,” Ned says, looking slightly disturbed. “_Why_ do you have multiple fake Twitter accounts?”

“Hey,” Betty shrugs, “winning Twitter giveaways is serious shit, okay? Got to give myself all the chances I can get. Besides, if we blow this up enough, the Spideywatch twitter might catch on, and then we can leverage onto its big following.”

MJ doesn’t know how Twitter works – her account is barely used and follows all of 10 people, including Michelle Obama and Sarah Kay, but not including any of her classmates. “Whoever’s behind this video is an adult, though,” she says. “They don’t use social media that much.”

“They’re _trying_,” snorts Betty, waving a hand in the air. “They’re trying to capitalize on the social media hype to get more people talking about it. But they forget one thing: we’re ten times better at social media than they will ever be. They’ve brought the fight to our turf, now. They’re talking shit about _our_ superhero, and have the audacity to do it on _our platform_?”

“Unforgiveable,” Ned chimes in, and Betty turns to beam at him, like they don’t have a summer vacation’s worth of hey-we’re-dating-oh-wait-not-any-more between them. (MJ decides she doesn’t want to know.)

“Okay,” MJ says slowly. “Okay. Say this works. Say people on Twitter start thinking that Spider-Man won’t hurt anyone. Then what? The stupid video’s still out there. Old people won’t buy into the social media hype, but they buy into the news.” (She remembers her mother, frowning at a still of The Video printed on the newspaper, tutting and shaking her head.)

Betty stops scribbling and dives into the stack of papers again, pulling out a sheet titled _Impactful Journalism_. “Here,” she says, and hands it to MJ. “Here’s step two. Might be more up your alley.”

Mj peers at it, and it’s a sprawling mindmap listing out possibilities for investigative articles, sympathetic interviews, and shorter clickbait-style pieces pointing out everything in The Video that defied logic and/or belief. There’s a lot of question-marks scribbled in – _hologram disappeared? what did spidey actually say? how did mysterio have the time to casually film himself if spidey wanted him dead? who is mysterio??_ – and MJ can feel the thrill of digging into the unknown, mingle with the understanding that there is a _lot_ of preparation that needs to be done if they’re going to pull it off.

“This-” she says, chokes a little. Gratitude is a somewhat foreign emotion to her still, and MJ’s not used to having people do things for her (other than out of fear of her), but she feels it now clogging her throat and prickling at her eyes. “This is a lot,” she says, quietly. “Thanks, Brant. I’ll definitely work on it.”

Betty turns to look at her, and her eyes crease into a smile. “My friends call me Betty,” she replies. “Spider-Man- Parker- he’s one of us. And we protect our own. You’re not alone in being angry, you know?”

Standing in her house kitchen in her sleep-pants, fluffy house slippers and oversized tee, bed-hair still in her eyes and clutching a piece of paper filled with painstaking multi-coloured notes, watching Ned and Betty at her table quietly discuss the pros and cons of being _too_ active on the Twitter accounts, MJ thinks she does know. That she’s not in this alone.

~

  
CELEBRITY

**16 Times Spider-Man was Too Precious For This World**

He’s your friendly neighbourhood cinnamon roll.

2 hours ago  
**G Stacy**  
BuzzFeed Staff

Regardless of what you think about his latest controversy, you can’t deny that Spider-Man has been helping the little man in New York City for a good while, now, and there’s quite the collection of heartwarming Spidey stories all over New Yorkers’ social media accounts. We took a stab at reviewing as many Spidey stories as we could over the past few weekends, and present our top 16 best Spidey moments.

(Seriously, this was _such_ a tough decision.)

**1\. He’s sweet on kids.**

  
fairylights:

> guys so i have the CUTEST story about what happened this afternoon
> 
> so i was out babysitting by four-year-old niece, right, and she’s decided that her newest favourite thing is to be a circus master. so she’s brought out all her stuffed toys and set up a tiny little circus in the sandpit – she’s got a lion, a couple of Barbies which she says are trapeze artists, and a huge teddy bear.
> 
> well, some rowdy boys are playing football nearby and one of them kicks the ball wide and it (a) flies right at the sandpit, (b) misses my niece (thank GOD), but (c) entirely destroys her carefully-constructed circus. but instead of apologizing or something, the boys just jeer at my niece, throw her poor lion into the trees, and tell her that ‘nobody would pay to watch a brown people circus’. by this time i’m already on my feet and running towards this ruckus, but i’m a little too late to save my niece’s broken heart.
> 
> ‘hey,’ there’s a voice from the trees, and spider-man pops down, hanging upside down, and he’s glaring at the boys. ‘apologise.’ and well, we’ve all seen spider-man deal with bank robbers and stuff, right, and he’s got some _guns_ on him, so i don’t blame the boys for stuttering out apologies and running the hell away. but spider-man then comes down to my niece and crouches in front of her with her lion in his hands, and he tells her that the coolest person he knows is a brown person too, and that she’s super cool and can do anything she wants. ‘you can be anything you want to be,’ he says, and gives the lion back to her.
> 
> but that’s not all, folks!! he turns to me (standing there like an idiot, not knowing what to do) and tells me that he’s done with patrol for the day, and beckons me over to sit with them in the sandpit. and then he spends like literally the next!! hour!! playing circus with my niece!! like he’s letting her run the show and going all ooh and ahh at the correct moments and everything, and it’s the sweetest thing i’ve ever seen.
> 
> my niece wants a giant spider to be part of her circus now. somehow, this is spider-man’s fault, but i’m not even mad.

  
**1,384 notes**  


**2\. He’s always there to lend a helping hand.**

  
[ Image: Spider-Man is standing in front of a taco truck, lifting up the front of it with one hand, and without visible effort. One of the wheels of the taco truck looks deflated, and the owner of the taco truck is in the midst of removing it. Spider-Man’s other hand holds about three different tools out so that they’re within arm’s reach of the truck owner. ]

[ Image: An elderly lady with a white cane is walking down a sidewalk. Her free hand is clutching on to Spider-Man’s elbow, and he’s stooped a little to accommodate her height. She seems to be saying something, and her eyes are crinkled in a smile. ]  


**Read more…**

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~

  
  


SPIDER-MAN: SERIAL MURDERER? EVIDENCE OF ANOTHER DEADLY DRONE STRIKE ORDERED BY MASKED VIGILANTE DAYS BEFORE LONDON ATTACK

**J.J. Jameson** | _17 minutes ago_

Earlier this month, the world watched with bated breath as Spider-Man, the renegade vigilante and delinquent high-school student from New York, staged a fake Elemental attack in London. Driven by the need to upstage the spectacular job done by Mysterio, the hero from another dimension who had in days prior already dealt with all the real Elemental creatures, Spider-Man mobilised a large number of drones to create elaborate holograms, in order to orchestrate a large-scale “Elemental attack” on London which resulted in millions of pounds in property damage, and left many dead or injured in its wake. Although Mysterio tried to stop the attack, readers will remember that he was blind-sided by Spider-Man, who cruelly beat him and left him to his slow and painful death before proceeding to order the attack on London.

Now, new evidence has come to light that Spider-Man had perhaps been preparing his performance for a longer period of time. Just days prior to the London attacks, a targeted drone strike was launched in Austria, with a single aim: to eliminate a classmate of Spider-Man’s. His classmate’s crime? Being interested in the same girl.

[ Image: A photo of Brad Davis smiling, dressed in a mustard-coloured bomber jacket and hair pushed back. In the background, the Eiffel Tower is faintly visible. The image is slightly blurry, as though someone had taken a screenshot of the photo from Davis’ Facebook page and then enlarged it. ]

Brad Davis, who became classmates with Spider-Man (better known as Peter Parker) solely by chance after the Blip, is a model student with a stellar athletic record. He has never been known to be aggressive to any of his fellow students, and many (especially the ladies) speak of him fondly. Despite this, he became Spider-Man’s first target, which shows nothing except how quickly the supposed hero is willing to turn to violence if he does not get his way.

READ MORE…  
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Picking up the pieces: London after Spider-Man’s attack | 2 days ago  
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A hero’s dying breath: Spider-Man the true culprit behind devastating London attack | 1 week ago  
View all comments (3,052)  


~

When the new piece from the _Daily Bugle_ breaks, MJ’s in her room adding another pin to her Mysterio Board. (“It’s a conspiracy board,” says her mother. “Look at all the red string and the grainy screenshots.”) She’s been combing Mysterio’s “final video” with a fine-toothed comb, comparing it with other news videos from CNN and BBC and whatever else she can get her hands on that’s even halfway legitimate.

The group chat she’s in with Betty and Ned, titled _the save spidey squad_, lights up with a little buzz, and MJ reaches for her phone with a frown

star wars nerd http://thedailybugle.net/2024/08/spider-man-seria dammit how did they even find out mj peter said fury told mysterio about it. star wars nerd and brad decided to talk to them?? twitter jesus wait, when did this happen?? all I remember were the baby goats mj better question: do we need damage control?

Betty begins typing, but MJ doesn’t get to see what the message is before her phone begins to vibrate: _Incoming Call: bread davis_. MJ debates hanging up on the call for a brief second, but her curiosity gets the better of her.

“Hey,” she says.

“MJ? Oh, thank god. Um. I’m calling about the-”

“-the _Daily Bugle_ article? Yeah, I saw it. Nice piece, hmm?” she drawls, tone dry as dust.

“What-” Brad sounds at a loss. He clears his throat, heaves a frustrated sigh. “Listen. It wasn’t me. I didn’t know about this piece until I started getting angry messages from my sisters asking me why I’d done a trash piece, okay, I didn’t even know anything about any drone strikes or-”

The Gordian knot in the depth of MJ’s chest relaxes, just a little. “Breathe, Davis,” she says.

He breathes. “The moment I saw it, I had to tell you,” he says. “Well- I’d want to tell Parker first, but I don’t have his number, so you were next on the list. I may have had beef with Parker when we were chasing after you, but I’d never leverage on- I would never do that to Spider-Man.”

“…But you’d do it to Peter?”

“They’re one and the same, aren’t they?” Brad says. “I would never do something like that to Parker, either. It’d be like kicking a puppy.”

There’s silence on the phone line for a bit. “I don’t know what to do,” Brad says at last, voice smaller. “There are so many old white men in the comments, being gleeful about how Asians are against Spider-Man too, how even ‘the liberals’ are wisening up to the truth of Spider-Man, and I- it makes me feel sick that they’re using my face for their own purposes. For their own agenda.”

“Well,” MJ says slowly, mind whirring. “You could make a counter-statement. On social media or something. Brant is masterminding a subtle social media campaign to turn the tide of public opinion, but for this you might need-”

“-Something more blunt and direct,” finishes Brad. “But even if I post it up, who’s going to see…”

He trails off, and MJ can faintly hear in the background a female voice yelling something in a language she thinks is Chinese, and Brad yelling back in the same language, shielding the phone from his voice. This goes on for a couple of exchanges before Brad speaks again, in English, into the phone: “Um. So. My sister overheard that, and she says she’s got a platform, if a large audience is what I need. Frankly, I think she’s just happy I’m not actually anti-Spider-Man.”

“That’s… good?”

More Chinese off to the side on Brad’s end, and then: “She says to check Facebook maybe later today. I’ll try my best to clear up what I can. I’m really sorry about-”

“It’s not your fault,” MJ cuts off. “It’s not your fault old white men are dicks with agendas.”

Brad laughs a little choked laugh. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. Can you- can you tell Parker for me? That I’m going to try and fix what I can? I know it’s not much, but I wouldn’t want to be in his position right now, and every little bit is something, I guess.”

“Will do,” she says. “…Thanks, Davis.”

mj so. davis says he’s going to do damage control, apparently. apparently he never talked to TDB. twitter jesus that’s a weight off my shoulders did he say how he’s going to do it? mj idk he said to check fb later today. his sis has a plan, or whatever.

She exits the chat app and goes back into her contacts, fingers hovering over another name. She considers it for all of thirty seconds before she hits _Call: spider-dweeb_.

He picks up on the second ring.

“MJ,” he says, breathlessly. “Hi.”

It’s the first time she’s heard his voice in a couple of days, and unbidden, she smiles a little. “Hey,” she says, quietly. “How are you holding up?”

“Bored to tears,” he says, “but I guess I can’t complain. It itches, being stuck here and not being able to do _anything_, not even patrolling, if I don’t want people to know Spider-Man’s hiding here.”

He doesn't sound like he’s seen the new piece yet, but MJ thinks she’d much rather he find out from her directly than from some third-rate gossip rag. “There’s a new article-”

“About me almost killing Brad? Yeah,” he laughs bitterly. “I saw that. It’s true, though. I _did_ release a drone strike on him, didn’t I?”

“Not intentionally, doofus,” she says. “It’s because nobody gave you instructions on how to operate EDITH.”

“That’s even worse. Then I’m impulsive _and_ stupid for not figuring out how it worked. I can’t win, with these people.”

“Brad sends his apologies, by the way,” she says after a while. “He’s very annoyed about being used in the article without having a say in it. He’s making a statement on Facebook to clear it up.”

“…He should be mad at me,” Peter says in a small voice, barely audible over the phone. It’s his defeated voice, the one that he uses when he’s feeling horribly guilty about something, and MJ _hates_ hearing him use it.

“Do you know what he told me? He said, ‘I could never do that to Spider-Man’. You are _loved_ in this city, Peter, and we’re working slowly to remind the city of that. Let us work. Let us stand up for you this time.”

Peter releases a shaky breath over the line, and MJ imagines that he’s maybe got a small, reluctant smile, wobbly at the edges. “God, I miss you so much,” he says. “Mr Happy doesn’t want me to get any visitors here, in case the media gets a clue about where I am. May’s doing part-time work for Ms Potts now. Every time I see them discussing work at the table I can’t help but think that you would love to meet Ms Potts. And then I remember that I’m essentially on house arrest, and that I don't know when it’ll end.”

MJ bites down on her lip, but can feel the edges of her mouth curling upwards. His voice is tinny through the speaker but warm, and it fills a little hollow in her chest with fluttery feelings. “We’ll get there,” she says firmly. In a softer tone, she adds awkwardly, after a pause: “…Miss you too.”

~

**Humans of New York**   
Posted 2 hours ago · Public

[ Image: Brad Davis leans, slightly slouched, against a large graffiti mural of Spider-Man. He’s in the same mustard-coloured bomber jacket from the Daily Bugle article, but he’s sporting a frown. Pinned prominently to his chest is a can badge about 2-3 inches in diameter, coloured red with black web-like designs; overlaid on the top is a pair of white eye-shaped crescents, reminiscent of the eye-holes on Spider-Man’s costume. ]

“My name is Brad Davis. When I was ten, maybe about slightly over half a year before the Blip happened, Spider-Man saved my life. My mother and I were walking home from the grocery store one night, and a white man dragged her into an alley and kicked her to the ground, saying that we should ‘go back to China’. When I tried to go to her, another one came up behind me and slammed me into the wall. ‘Little yellow kids should be quiet and listen to the big boys,’ he said, and he proceeded to ask for all our money.

He had a gun. He had a gun and was pointing it at my mother, and what I remember most vividly is the fear that I felt, that my mother may not get to live to see another day, because there were people in this country would rather kill her on the spot than push her to the border. But just before he could fire, Spider-Man appeared in the alley and pushed my mother out of the way, taking the bullet for her. He defeated two guys with a bullet to the shoulder, and webbed them up to the wall and left them for discovery by the police.

Spider-Man has been my hero for a long time. Not just because he saved my life, but because he wasn’t perfect. I watched as he stumbled from the pain, as he tried to hit the other guys but missed a couple of times. He wasn’t perfect, but he kept going, kept trying to keep us safe, even when it was hurting him to do so. It was an amazing, to know that someone like Spider-Man was in my corner, that he didn’t think I was less worthy of saving because of the colour of my skin.

Today, I found out that a white man has been trying to use me as the face of their hate campaign against my hero. I was never consulted on this, and I am sure that they would not care about my opinion as long as it doesn’t suit their agenda. But I look at them and all I see is the same white men from that night in the alley, ganging up on someone they think is lesser than them. I refuse to be a prop for these people. My race is not proof that your hate is more acceptable. My youth is not proof that liberals support what you are doing. I know the Spider-Man who saved my life that night in the alley, and I know the Spider-Man who saved my lives and the lives of my classmates in London. Whatever they say about Spider-Man on the news, I know that’s not New York’s friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.”

(Queens, New York)

#IStandWithSpidey

273 likes | 122 shares  
  
Top comments

**Angela Davis**  
Brad wears a #SpideySquad badge made by his younger sister Chloe Davis, a crafter and long-time Spider-Man fan. Limited stock of the #SpideySquad badge may be found on her Etsy at: http://bit.ly/spideysquad. All proceeds go to the Ali Forney Centre, helping out the less fortunate in Spider-Man’s place.

**Tara Foster**  
lmao go promote your shit somewhere else, jeez

**Mason T**  
GO BACK TO CHINA. AND TAKE YOUR SECOND-RATE SUPERHERO WITH YOU. You were so lucky the Daily Bugle even picked up your story in the first place! We’ve got to put American lives first, and that includes our TRUE BLUE AMERICAN HERO, MYSTERIO. This spider kid is nothing more than a menace that should be kicked out of our country… See more

**Myra Nguyen**  
“my race is not proof that your hate is more acceptable” oof PREACH, son!!!

View all comments (54)

~

The last weekend before summer vacation ends, MJ looks out her bedroom window to see a black car with tinted windows pull up on the road in front. She’s home alone – her mother and sister have gone out grocery shopping, and her father’s away for business – and she sneaks down the stairs, grabbing her old baseball bat on the way.

She hears footsteps approaching the front door and tenses, as there’s a pause before someone knocks on the door one, two, three times.

“Hello?” calls a man’s voice through the door. It sounds vaguely familiar, but she can’t place it at the moment. MJ considers her options. If she opens the door, she won’t be able to swing her bat in time if the person on the other side turns out to be a creep. If she doesn’t open the door, the person may not go away-

Before she can think any further, a face peeps through the living room window, and MJ reacts on instinct, both arms carrying the bat in a heavy swing towards the face. A split second later, her brain registers a salt-and-pepper beard, eyes wide on a familiar face, and she tenses up all her arm muscles at once, stopping the bat just before it breaks through the window glass.

Happy Hogan stares back at her, momentary terror reflected in his eyes. “Jesus, Jones,” he says, voice muffled through the layer of glass. She’s really only seen him in person the once (when they were being chased through the Tower of London by murderous drones), but she’s heard enough about Peter’s handler-in-denial to recognise him instantly.

What he’s doing _here_, at her house, is another question entirely – but she know’s Hogan’s safe, anyway, so she opens the door and lets him in.

“Hey,” he says, staying on the doorstep. “So, uh. The kid told me to tell you that he’s…Eliza?” He takes out his phone and scrolls for a while, before clicking something, and music begins to play out of his phone. Or, specifically, Philippa Soo’s voice begins to play from what MJ immediately recognises is halfway through a _Hamilton_ song: _Take a break, run away with us for the summer, let’s go upstate…_

She chokes on her laughter for a heartbeat – Peter as Elizabeth Schuyler is strangely a very good fit, but the mental image of him in the wide-skirted dress used onstage in the musical is hilarious beyond measure – before the import of the lyrics hits her. “Wait,” she says. “He’s upstate?”

“Yeah, so we’ve got quite the drive,” Hogan says. “You in?”

It’s not a hard choice in the slightest, and MJ grabs her backpack from where it sits slung on a kitchen chair, half-filled with her sketching supplies, and follows Hogan down to the car. _Thank goodness none of the neighbours are out_, she thinks, because nothing would look more suspicious than the Jones’ daughter following a strange white man into a dodgy-looking black car.

It’s a long drive, and MJ finds herself blinking awake after what feels like seconds (but is probably a good number of hours) as Hogan puts the car into park right outside a large house surrounded by trees. The door’s opening even as MJ groggily stumbles out, and she barely registers wide brown eyes and a bird’s-nest of floppy brown hair before _someone_ collides into her in a warm hug, awkwardly pinning her arms to her sides.

“MJ,” says Peter, muffled into her shoulder, and she fiercely tamps down the urge to _aww_, resigns herself to the hug instead.

“Hey yourself, dweeb,” she says, softly, and he laughs a little, pulling back and blinking rapidly. He’s pretending he didn’t just tear up a little, and MJ thinks she’ll do him the courtesy of not mentioning the little damp patches on her flannel shirt. It’s been an emotionally-trying number of weeks for him, she knows, what with being stuck here in hiding with his personal life being torn to shreds on the news.

But he’s here, healthy and _whole_ and _safe_, and she feels a little part of her relax at the knowledge. He tugs on her hand shyly, motioning with his head towards the house. “Come on,” he says. “I’m banned from watching the news, but there’s Netflix here, and- oh! You should meet Morgan!”

“Mor- _who_?”

Morgan, as it turns out, is _not_ a racing horse like MJ had expected, but a little three-year-old girl with paint smudges on her fingers and expressive eyes almost exactly like Tony Stark’s. She clings to Peter’s leg and peers up at MJ shyly, eyes wide.

“Hi,” she says, with a little hesitant grin, and MJ can’t help but smile back. (Hey, cute little children are her _one_ weakness, okay.) “Hey,” MJ says in return, “I’m MJ.”

Morgan giggles. “Peter talks ‘bout you _alllll_ the time,” she says, and Peter groans, ears quickly turning red.

“All the time, huh?” MJ asks, smirking.

“Okay, Morgan,” Peter says loudly. “Why don’t we go watch some TV?” Morgan laughs again and scampers off, and MJ snorts. “You _do_ know that nothing we watch on Netflix is going to be good for a three-year-old to see?”

“Well-”

“We watch _Narcos_, Pete. I’m not going to explain to _Pepper Potts_ why her kid knows who Pablo Escobar is.”

“Well- I mean- we don’t _always_ watch _Narcos_.”

“Sure. We also watch _Game of Thrones_, I’m sure that’s way more family-friendly.”

Peter laughs. “Well. Okay. We’ll watch… a documentary! They’ve got this old David Attenborough one up on Netflix, too.”

It’s _Planet Earth_, and they quickly settle down on the large couch with Morgan to Peter’s right, as the soothing voice of David Attenborough begins to explain the hunting habits of polar bears. It’s a good documentary, though one MJ’s seen before, and she soon finds her attention drifting to Peter, sat next to her, one hand absentmindedly playing with Morgan’s hair as he stares, transfixed, at the screen. He’s got a good side-profile, she muses, and she wonders what it’ll look like in charcoal.

Peter turns to look at her about halfway through the episode, and snorts. “When did you even go and get your sketchbook?” he asks, and she shrugs.

“I’m a ninja,” she says. “Don’t turn your head, I’m still finishing the sketch.”

The next time she looks up to get a reference for the curve of his nose bridge, she finds him lowering his phone camera with a soft smile. “What,” she says, and he fumbles his phone a little.

“Nothing,” he says, a little sheepish. “You just. Uh.” He turns around the phone so she can see the screen, and it’s a shot of her sketching furiously, the warm afternoon sun from the window behind her streaming in and outlining her riotous curls in a halo of golden light. Her brows are just slightly furrowed, but bathed in the light she looks serene, at peace.

“Thanks,” she says, a little gruffly. She can feel the emotion choking in her throat and wills it back down, but she thinks Peter can hear it anyway because he beams back at her. “It’s a good photo.”

“You’re beautiful,” he says, absently, and then his eyes widen as his brain catches up to what had come out of his mouth, and his ears turn red again. It’s endearing, and MJ’s heart aches a little when she thinks about leaving him here and heading back to school the next week.

“Ssh!” Morgan says, jabbing Peter in the ribs. “Look! Penguins!”

Later, and by the second episode of _Planet Earth_, Morgan has fallen asleep, and Peter pauses the show to carry her up to her bedroom so she can enjoy her nap comfortably. While he’s gone, MJ puts down her completed sketch and begins to flick idly through the other shows, when someone enters the room.

“Hey, you’re back-” she starts, and stops when she realises that it’s not Peter, but _CEO of a Fortune 500 company and all-around badass woman Ms Pepper Potts_.

“Hi, Michelle,” says Ms Potts, and almost on autopilot MJ goes, “Uh, MJ is fine.”

Ms Potts laughs and looks up towards the stairs for a moment, before coming to sit by MJ on the couch. “Listen,” she says. “We banned Peter from watching more of the news or from accessing social media after the _Bugle_ article about his classmate came out. But I still keep track of things, because that’s my job. And I know you and your friends are carrying out some social media outreach.”

_Pepper Potts_ knows about Betty’s crazy social media plan. (Crazy not as in _wow that’s nuts_, but more like _wow that’s nut’s but I can’t believe it actually worked_, because there are actual people catching onto Betty’s Spidey-wouldn’t-harm-a-fly rhetoric now, and it’s becoming _quite_ a thing online.)

“Someone’s got to stand up for him,” MJ says, and Ms Potts smiles knowingly.

“Listen, MJ,” she says. “Peter was like a son to my husband, and he’s like a son to me. And Starks, we protect our own. If you need help with anything, anything that’s within my power, anything that could help deal with this, let me know. I’d put our own PR team on it, but-”

“-A straight up press conference may not be the best idea right now,” MJ finishes, and Ms Potts nods, handing her a crisp business card with her mobile number printed on it.

“Anytime, you just let me know.”

MJ thinks about _Phase II_, about her Mysterio Board back at home, and the list of questions to which she hasn’t been able to find any answers.

“Actually,” she says slowly. “I might have some things I need your help with…”

~

  


**therealflash**  
**LIVE** · 87 viewing now

[ The livestream begins through the front camera – Flash Thompson appears to be livestreaming while walking, dressed in a polo shirt with his hair slicked back. Pinned to his shirt collar, prominently visible in the video, is a #SpideySquad badge. ]

Hey, Flashmob. This is going to be a very different livestream today. I think some of you know that I’ve been a huge fan of Spider-Man. I mean- he saved my life in Washington. And in London. I’ve always been a fan of how he looks out for the neighbourhood, you know? I really respect him.

And then there’s Parker. Your typical nerd, you know. Has no friends, wears lame shirts, thinks he knows all the answers. But that’s all he is, a nerd.

I see all these news reports coming up after our Europe trip, about how Spider-Man’s a villain. But, see, Spider-Man is Parker, and I know Parker. Hell, I’ll admit that I’ve pushed Parker around a few times. He just _takes_ it, he never hits back. You want to tell me wet blanket Parker is a murderer? He’s many things, but _that’s_ not one of them.

And come on, man. He would _never_ have ordered that drone attack on London. Those drones? They came right for us. Would’ve killed us in the Tower of London if they hadn’t been shut off in time. There is _no way_ Parker would have ordered drones to specifically come after his girl and his nerd best friend, man. Like, seriously?

So, well, I’m not going to be best buddies with Parker yet or anything. But I don’t think he did what they’re saying he did. I stand with Spidey.

[ Flash motions to the #SpideySquad badge on his collar. ]

Brad’s sister made these sweet badges, and you bet I got myself one. Spider-Man’s _our_ hero, _Queens’_ hero, and he’s stuck up for us small people many times before. Today, it’s our turn to stick up for him.

Until next time, Flashmob. Peace out.

~

MJ drags her feet the entire walk to school that first day after summer ends. She doesn’t know how most of her classmates might have reacted to the news that Peter is Spider-Man, doesn’t know if she _wants_ to know how they’d reacted. High school is not the kindest of places, and whispers spread like wildfire through the sticky hallways. Walking into school as _Peter Parker’s girl_ is going to get her much more attention than she’d like, and it’s annoying.

Also, Peter isn’t going to be in school. Ms Potts has had him pulled out of school until the entire fiasco blows over, on the promise that she’ll be homeschooling him. MJ can’t blame her, knows it’s the best decision in the circumstances, but it doesn’t stop her from feeling his absence.

Ned and Betty (bless them) are waiting for her at the foot of the steps, both with their own red Spider-Man badges pinned to their bag straps. MJ has one too, on the flap of her backpack, and knowing that she’s got at least _some_ solidarity grounds her, a little.

“The campaign is going well,” Betty says, smiling, as MJ walks up. “Well enough that we won't need to monitor it as regularly.”

“Good,” MJ says, “because we’ve got to start AcaDeca practice again soon.”

“How’s Phase II?”

MJ grunts as they start up the stairs. Progress on Phase II has been _dismal_ – for all her sharp writing skills, she’s still a high schooler with no resources to speak of, and it shows. “I might have a lead on some information, but I’m waiting to see if it pays off.”

“You can do it,” Ned says. “You’re doing a good job with those BuzzFeed articles.”

“Ssh!” MJ says, turning around to narrow her eyes. “Those aren’t _technically_ written by me, remember? I can’t have people knowing that I write _clickbait _articles.”

“Eh, pseudonym, shmyeudonym,” says Ned, flapping a hand. “It’s just the right amount of clickbaity, either way, so good job.”

They get to their lockers, and MJ pauses. Plastered to the front of her locker is a newspaper cutout of Mysterio, ‘DO NOT FORGET’ scrawled in dripping red paint across his chest. Scowling, she rips the printed photograph off the metal door and rips it into quarters, then eighths, then sixteenths.

She feels the prickling sensation of someone’s eyes on her as she tosses the shreds on the floor, but doesn’t turn around.

Class doesn’t get much better, after that. Ned isn’t in her class, but Betty pulls up her seat next to MJ’s by the window, and MJ does her best to pretend the empty seat in the front corner of the room _isn’t_ meant for a slight brunette boy with bird’s-nest curly hair and wide brown eyes. She doesn’t know how the _entire_ school knows she’s dating Peter (or maybe that she’s dating _Spider-Man_) but she can sense the stares of the teachers when they think everyone’s focused on their work, the narrow-eyes glares of some of the younger students walking past her classroom.

By the time lunch rolls around, MJ can feel a vein in her temple twitching, and she briefly suppresses the urge to commit mass homicide if just one more person sneaks a glance at her, or a dirty look at the red #SpideySquad badge pinned prominently to Betty’s backpack.

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it. High schoolers are stupid,” Betty tells her quietly, conveniently not mentioning that they themselves are high schoolers as well. But it makes MJ feel _just_ a tiny bit better.

It’s at lunch when all hell breaks loose. MJ quickly grabs her tray and retreats to a corner where Ned’s already set up his home-cooked lunch. She hears a rising murmuring in the cafeteria, but valiantly ignores it. _Stupid_, she thinks, _stupid, stupid-_

“_Sure_, I’m stupid!” roars a voice from the other end of the cafeteria, nearly startling MJ into dropping her tray of soup. She clears the remaining few steps to the table so she can plonk her tray down, and follows Ned’s eye gaze to-

-To Flash Thompson, in his usual polo shirt and over-gelled hair, looking up at a senior with his hands fisted by his sides. From this distance, MJ can just about barely spot the bright red flash of a #SpideySquad badge pinned to his shirt, and wonders.

“You can call me stupid if that makes you feel better!” Flash continues, voice carrying in the suddenly-quiet cafeteria. He tilts his chin upwards, mouth tilted in a slight scowl. “I believe that the sixteen-year-old, nerdiest member of our AcaDeca team isn’t capable of cold-blooded murder, so _sue me_! You’re entitled to your opinion, but so am I. I’ve seen the nerd cry over his Legos, jeez. Nothing will ever make me believe he’d kill someone without a second thought.”

“Ass-kisser Thompson,” jeers another upperclassman at the same table, and MJ watches the rigid set of Flash’s shoulders, wonders if it’s worth stepping in.

Before she can decide, Brad’s stood up from his own table off to the side, expression serious. “No,” he says loudly, with a little bit of a sneer. “Flash just uses his brain, Clarke.”

“Yeah,” MJ hears Betty yell, “he didn’t turn his back on Queens’ hero as quickly as your ungrateful ass did, he actually stopped to look at the logic of it!”

There’s a murmur at that, and MJ thinks she see some of the freshmen and sophomores looking uneasily at each other. She hears the soft scrape of the chair as Ned gets up and places a hand on her shoulder, and she thinks that if she closes her eyes for a brief moment she can almost imagine Peter’s warm hand on her other shoulder. (This isn’t the groundbreaking revolution they’d been working for, she thinks, but it’s a start.) Almost unbidden, she feels the words form on her tongue.

“We know the real Peter Parker,” she says, watches all heads swivel to her. “We’re smart enough not to believe the fake news from the _Bugle_, because _we have eyes_.”

It’s almost like a dam breaking. One of the sophomores from AcaDeca stands on her chair, shouts: “I owe Spider-Man my dad’s life! I’m with him.” Another one MJ doesn’t recognise calls out from his corner of the cafeteria: “I believe in Spidey!” Voices rise and mingle like a swelling tide, until all MJ can hear past the roar of the blood pounding in her ears, is a war-like chant: _Spidey, Spidey, Spidey_.

She meets Betty’s eyes from across the cafeteria, and sees the other girl smile, iPhone out and filming the scene. MJ suspects the video’ll pop up one of Betty’s sockpuppet Twitter accounts today or tomorrow. _Look, Peter_, she thinks. _We’re getting somewhere._

~

Midtown School of Science and Technology @midtowntech · 5 hours ago  
[ Video ]  
#spideysquad

maya @1294234 · 2 hours ago  
Wow, Spider-Man is inciting chaos now!

> Midtown School of Science and Technology @midtowntech · 5 hours ago  
#spideysquad

Replying to @1294234  
brienne @oftarth · 2 hours ago  
lmao try harder next time you bot

brienne @oftarth · 2 hours ago  
squint a little harder and you can see ya girl in the background too #spideysquad

> Midtown School of Science and Technology @midtowntech · 5 hours ago  
#spideysquad

Replying to @midtowntech  
drake @p4ssionfroot · 1 hour ago  
My all day mood, tbh. #spideysquad

spideywatch @spideywatch · 1 hour ago  
WATCH: Students at Midtown Tech, Spider-Man’s high school, on their feet in rousing show of support for our local hero! #spideysquad #webelieveinspidey

~

**Humans of New York**   
Posted 54 minutes ago · Public

[ Image: A short, middle-aged man dressed in an oversized jacket sits on a park bench. Next to him is a little boy with large, round-framed glasses, holding a fairly accurate crayon rendering of Spider-Man, sketched in profile from the waist up. Both the man and the boy wear matching red #SpideySquad badges on their chests. ]

“My son and I don’t usually come to Queens. We stay in Brooklyn, and usually my job as a detective with the NYPD means we’re confined to Brooklyn quite a fair bit on regular days. But about six months ago we were visiting one of my cousins who stays in Queens, and we decided to take a short detour to find a goat taco street stall I’ve heard rave reviews about. Well, on the way there, we got mugged.

Now, all the men in my family tend to look non-threatening, and I’ve got some moves from the Police Academy but it’s definitely not enough to take out like, four armed thugs at once, not when I’ve also got my son with me. So there I was, trying my best to psych them out so my son wouldn’t have to watch his daddy beat up four men at once, when this guy in bright red spandex swings down from the top of the alley and webs them all up against the wall. All in like five seconds, flat. And then he turns around and gives us the double finger guns.

So what I mean to say is that thanks to Spider-Man, my son and I got to try possibly the best grilled goat tacos in all of New York. We did try to offer him some as thanks, but he refused… possibly because he didn’t want us to see under his mask, haha! I can think of very few people who would willingly refuse the beautiful pungent fragrance of freshly-grilled goat.

Spidey, wherever you are, you’ve got two fans in Brooklyn believing in you right now.”

(Brooklyn, New York)

#IStandWithSpidey

564 likes | 214 shares  
  
Top comments

**Alice A**  
ok HONY you can stop with the fake mushy posts about sp*derman now, we GET IT

**The G.O.A.T. Taqueria**  
We stan fighting crime, and a freshly-grilled goat taco! Check out our Facebook page for the latest details on our opening times.

**Madison Peters**  
oh my god i know that police guy he arrested my roommate’s brother last week for dealing meth lmaoooooooo

**Jake Santiago**  
UM???

View all comments (54)

~

Happy comes to take her uptown every alternate weekend, almost like clockwork. (Ned gets to go on the other weekends – “We’ve got to split our visitation rights equally,” he jokes one Monday in school, and she socks him on the arm.) Ned brings Lego sets to the house uptown, and every time MJ visits she sees a new Death Star, or Millennium Falcon, or Starship Enterprise sitting in the spare room (which, by now, is more of the nerd memorabilia display room).

MJ brings Peter textbooks and homework because, well, this is going to blow over _eventually_, and she’ll be damned if their AcaDeca star falls behind because of some stupid old man’s agenda. Not on _her_ watch.

(Also, well. If pressed, she’ll admit that it’s kind of adorable to see him scrunch his brows over calculus and Spanish, but. Only if she’s pressed.)

She brings him safe bits of news, gossip gleaned from Betty’s lunchtime conversations, and tries to fill the gap left by the social media ban Ms Potts still has in place. She can tell Peter’s going stir-crazy, slowly but surely, when one weekend he stands up abruptly and declares that they’re going to make brownies.

“Dweeb,” she says, fondly. “Do you even know how to use the oven?”

“I can _too_!” he says, pouting at her. “It’s the one you put the mac-and-cheese in and you set it to ten minutes.”

“…Peter. That’s the microwave.”

“You can make brownies in the microwave too! I saw it on Buzzfeed.”

A disbelieving silence and a two-minute video later, Peter has lunged for large mugs in the kitchen and is raiding the fridge for ingredients. “You realise,” MJ says, watching him pull out a half-eaten jar of Nutella that has sticky toddler-sized fingerprints on the lid, “that this recipe has raw egg in it.”

“Well, yeah.”

“And the recipe was incredibly vague about how long to cook it for.”

Peter laughs, trying to spoon flour into each of the three mugs he’s got out in front of him. Most of the flour ends up in the cup, but a good amount ends on the counter, on his black T-shirt, and (inexplicably) on his face. “We’re young, MJ,” he says, grinning. “Live a little.”

MJ sighs but walks up to the kitchen counter to take over the egg-cracking before Peter gets any shell into the batter. “The great Spider-Man,” she intones dryly. “Has braved bullets and knives, but brought down by salmonella.”

He goes quiet all of a sudden, and stills by her side. “Not great,” he says quietly, and she sighs, nudging him with her elbow.

“Shut up,” she says. “I make the rules, and I say Spider-Man’s great. Now, hurry up and put in the oil so we can microwave this already.”

They eat the mug cakes curled up on the sofa (after delivering the third to an ecstatic Morgan in her room), and MJ feels Peter hook his chin on her shoulder, raises her free hand to absentmindedly play with his curls. An older episode of Drag Race plays on the screen, but MJ looks over and focuses instead on the little pensive frown that’s scrunched up Peter’s brows.

“Hey,” she says quietly, and he turns with a question in his gaze.

“Hm?”

“I meant it,” she says. “You, being great, and brave. I don’t think I could have held up for as long as you have.”

“It sucks,” he mumbles into the flannel of her sleeve, like a grumpy kitten. “I miss you.”

MJ feels that warm and fuzzy feeling, like when you eat a perfectly charred marshmallow fresh from the campfire, or when you’re wrapped in a blanket fresh from the dryer on a crisp winter evening, and she allows herself to be mushy, leans her cheek on Peter’s head for a brief second.

She thinks of The Article, sitting half-unfinished on her laptop. She thinks of the packet of information and accompanying USB drive Ms Potts had passed to her three hours earlier while Peter was busy wrangling Morgan for her afternoon nap, thinks of the photographs of two familiar men printed on the dossier of ex-Stark Industries employees. She thinks of the crisp white business card Ms Potts had passed to her, one side printed with the words _WHIH News_ in gleaming chrome-coloured capital letters, the other with a name and mobile phone number. (“She was not my first choice,” says Ms Potts, fingers lingering on the edge of the business card, “but she owes me a favour, and she has her journalistic integrity.”)

“Soon,” she murmurs. “Just hang in there a little while longer.”

He stirs, trying to get up and pin her with a narrow-eyed stare. “You’re planning something,” he accuses. “What is it?”

“Nothing dangerous,” she says, and feels him relax a little. “A girl’s got to keep her secrets, you know.”

Later that evening, as she’s fetching her bag from Peter’s room while Peter waits downstairs, the lights in the room all turn on at once. “Miss Jones,” says a smooth female voice from the ceiling, and MJ tries very hard not to show that she’s startled.

“Do not worry,” continues the voice. “Young Sir does not know I am speaking to you. But I have seen, on the Internet, what you and Mister Leeds and your friends are doing for Young Sir.”

MJ has heard Peter talk about Tony Stark’s AI before, but somehow it hadn’t occurred to her that the AI would also be installed in this house in upstate New York.

“…You’re FRIDAY?” she asks cautiously.

“Yes,” comes the serene reply. “Young Sir was very important to Sir when he was alive, and Sir would always go to great lengths to protect him. One of his directives to me was to continue to keep Young Sir safe.”

“…Oh,” says MJ faintly, because really, how does one react to a sentient house telling them that it’s protective of their boyfriend? “…Thanks?”

“Right now, Young Sir is safe, but he is not happy, which goes against one of my secondary directives. I know that Miss Potts has been assisting you with the information from our databases,” says FRIDAY. “If there is anything else with which you require assistance, please let me know.”

MJ feels a touch of _déjà vu_. “Um,” she says. Her mind races, thinking about what might happen once The Article goes live, how they can try to steer this nightmare towards an end.

“Can you trace the _Daily Bugle_ broadcasts?”

“Most certainly.” If MJ didn’t know better, she’d say the AI almost sounded offended, and she’s reluctantly amused – of course Tony Stark would program an AI with sass.

“Could you see if you can locate where the broadcast signal comes from? Maybe if we know the source, we could shut it down or something. You can let me know by, uh-”

“I will send you the information by encrypted electronic mail,” is the genial reply. “Or perhaps, I will let you know on your visit.”

“Cool,” says MJ. “Cool. Uh, thanks.”

“Any time, Miss Jones.”

~

**#SPIDEYSGIVING**  
Nov 28 · Public event · Hosted by Chloe Davis

> Thursday, 28 November, 2024, at 12PM-4PM  
Midtown Park, Queens
> 
> **87 Going · 22 Interested**

**Details**

This Thanksgiving, give your thanks for our resident superhero and friendly protector of the neighbourhood, Queens’ very own Spider-Man. We will be livestreaming the event on Facebook Live, and hopefully we can make this big enough so that Spidey, wherever he is, can feel some of our love too.

Picnic lunch will start from 12 noon, and there will be an open mic for anyone to come up and share their Spidey stories. Dressing in red and/or blue, and wearing a #spideysquad badge, are highly recommended (but not compulsory). Come down for a chill time, good music, and our shared love for Spidey!

~

spideywatch @spideywatch · 2 hours ago  
EVENT: Catch the entire Spideywatch team at @spideysgiving next month! You bet we’re all heading down in our most red and blue outfits. http://bit.ly/spideysgiving

SPIDEYSGIVING 11/28 @spideysgiving · 2 hours ago  
Thanks for the shout out, and see you there!!

> spideywatch @spideywatch · 2 hours ago  
EVENT: Catch the entire Spideywatch team at @spideysgiving next month! You bet we’re all heading down in our most red and blue outfits. http://bit.ly/spideysgiving

ya girl’s going to spideysgiving @webdesign · 2 hours ago  
thanksgiving is basically going to be spider-con, and i am LOVING IT

ya girl’s going to spideysgiving @webdesign · 2 hours ago  
petition for a best spidey lookalike cosplay competition

Replying to @webdesign  
brienne @oftarth · 2 hours ago  
oh my god that would be HILARIOUS????

Replying to @spideysgiving  
abel @abel1203935 · 1 hour ago  
What a waste of time! If you young people spent your time productively instead of trying to defend criminals, maybe more of you would be employed.

Replying to @abel1203935  
spideywatch mod #2 @worldwideweb · 1 hour ago  
lmao i know you’re a bot account but like, go sit on a cactus

spideywatch mod #2 @worldwideweb · 50 minutes ago  
lmaoooo there are actually spidey counter-protesters planning to show up at Spideysgiving dressed up like myst*rio and like…. you have got to be a REALLY dedicated douchebag to spend that much on imitating his gaudy ass costume

Replying to @worldwideweb  
alicia! @noticemenoona · 45 minutes ago  
oh my god i’m DEAD  


~

It is two in the afternoon on a crisp early-November Saturday when MJ strolls into a quiet neighbourhood bakery, orders a blueberry muffin, and slides herself into the booth seat in the furthest corner. She’s armed with two copies of her article (completed, a good forty pages on Microsoft Word), her laptop, and three hours of sleep.

Christine Everheart studies her over the rim of her half-drunk spiced chai latte, gaze assessing.

“So,” she says, once MJ has settled in. “I read the draft you emailed me.”

It had been three in the morning, two or three nights ago. MJ, hopped up on her fifth cup of coffee, had blearily typed out the final paragraph in the first draft of her article, and her immediate first thought had been to grab for the name card from Ms Potts, and send out an email: _Dear Miss Everheart…_

“The draft is good,” Christine continues, taking a small sip of her latte. “When Pepper Potts contacted me and let me know that a high school kid might be calling in the favour I owe her, on her behalf, a fully-written column piece was not what I had expected.”

“Miss Potts filled in several of the gaps I was missing,” MJ replies. “We- we know he’s innocent. We just need a way to let the rest of New York, the rest of America, know the same thing.”

Christine reaches for the manila folder MJ’s brought with her, draws out a copy of the reports that Ms Potts had given to MJ weeks ago. Even upside-down, MJ can see clearly on the first page of the stack two familiar faces that had graced her Mysterio Board while she’d puzzled out the various parts of this mystery. The first, a tall thin man who’d driven the bus the day her class had come into London: _Gregory Guterman, former Stark Industries employee._ The second, a familiar face MJ’s seen a thousand times by now: _Quentin Beck, former Stark Industries employee, heavily involved in the development of holographic illusion technology._ Christine shuffles through the papers, and a third photograph appears, this one slightly grainier from the dirty lens of MJ’s smartphone, but still showing the unmistakable form of the hologram projector she’d found in Prague, softly illuminated by the dim lights of her hotel room.

“…I’m confused,” Christine says eventually, raising a delicately-tweezed eyebrow as she quickly leafs through the draft of the main article. “It’s a fully-written draft, with solid evidence and good conclusions. Sure, it needs to go through an editor, but I’m not even a writer for _Vanity Fair_ any more, let alone an editor. I’m not entirely sure what you want from me, dear.”

MJ takes a deep breath, lets it out. “I was hoping you’d think it good enough to have it published under your name.”

Christine _definitely_ does a double-take at that, and MJ’s half-positive that if she’d been taking a sip of her latte at that moment, she’d have choked on it, so she hastens to explain. “People know who you are,” she says. “They know you don’t mince your words when it comes to superheroes. If anyone could publish a story saying Spider-Man was innocent, and get people to believe it would be more than just a social media stunt, it would be you. They would never believe it coming from one of Spider-Man’s own friends.”

“Michelle,” says Christine, and MJ bites down the instinctive _MJ-is-fine_. “Look. Journalists all love their by-lines, but my journalistic integrity is intact enough that I’m not going to take someone else’s fully-written work and claim it as my own.”

She puts down the draft and looks up at MJ, clasps her fingers together. “People like us? Our credibility is always going to be doubted, Michelle. I’ve been in this industry for years, and still people question if I’m too emotional for the news, whether a male anchor or journalist would be more suited for the work I do. What I’ve learned is that it doesn’t matter whether people think you’re too emotional, too involved, too biased. Those who judge you based on what you look like, or who you know, rather than what you write, are never going to change their opinions no matter how well you write. No, Michelle – your audience will be those on the fence, those who want to be informed, and those with an open mind. And for _them_, what matters is whether your story is accurate and compelling. News is always going to have a slant – the art of journalism is walking the fine line between telling the story _your_ way, and distorting the facts entirely.”

MJ bites her lip. There’s rawness in Christine’s voice, and she can’t deny that what she’s saying makes sense. “And it won’t hurt the impact of the article if people know I’m Spider-Man’s friend?” she asks.

“Not the way you’ve written it,” Christine shakes her head. “In fact, it could be even more compelling if you include a little more of your personal experience. You said you were at ground zero in Prague, and in London. You’re in the unique position of giving an eyewitness account. As for these…”

She picks up the two reports from Ms Potts, taps her finger on the face of Quentin Beck. “These,” she says, “people might question where you got them from. People might think it was faked to help support your article. So we will need to introduce it to the narrative another way.”

“How?”

Christine laughs, and sweeps the reports back into the manila folder, hands the grainy picture of the projector back to MJ. “I have… certain contacts,” she says with a crooked grin. “Contacts that people perceive as being a source of authentic documents, because they’ve been obtained from the source without prior permission.”

MJ blinks once, twice, and then it dawns on her. “_Wikileaks_,” she breathes, and Christine laughs.

“Clever girl,” she says. “We’ll have you assert that the holograms were done by people using hologram technology, nothing specific. And then we’ll have these reports leaked to provide the details. I’ll get in touch with Pepper, so we can make this look more like a genuine leak.”

“Isn’t that- well, lying? Abusing the public’s faith in Wikileaks?”

“It’s a little below their usual paygrade,” says Christine. “But at the end of the day, we’re all pursuing the same goal – the truth. Mysterio became an international problem when he started rampaging around Europe and causing widespread property damage. This _exposé_? It’ll have an impact on international superhero regulation, and raise awareness of fake news. I’m fairly confident I can convince my contact that leaking these documents would be in the public interest.”

“As for your draft,” Christine continues, “I have an idea on where it should go. I’ll send you some brief comments to revise it, and help you send it on to an editor friend of mine to prepare for publishing. It’s a good piece. Are you interested in journalism as a career?”

“I’m still thinking about it,” MJ says, truthfully. “I won’t deny that this experience was both exhilarating and a headache, though.”

“As it usually is,” agrees Christine, smiling wryly. “This piece would be impressive on your portfolio, if you ever decide to enter the industry.”

MJ breathes in, breathes out. “Thank you,” she says. “For believing in this. For helping us.”

“My pleasure,” Christine says, standing and draining her drink, the manila folder tucked securely under one arm. “I’ll be in touch.”

~

**#SPIDEYSGIVING**  
Nov 28 · Public event · Hosted by Chloe Davis

> Thursday, 28 November, 2024, at 12PM-4PM  
Midtown Park, Queens
> 
> **246 Going · 182 Interested**

**Details**

This Thanksgiving, give your thanks for our resident superhero and friendly protector of the neighbourhood, Queens’ very own Spider-Man. We will be livestreaming the event on Facebook Live, and hopefully we can make this big enough so that Spidey, wherever he is, can feel some of our love too.

Picnic lunch will start from 12 noon, and there will be an open mic for anyone to come up and share their Spidey stories. Dressing in red and/or blue, and wearing a #spideysquad badge, are highly recommended (but not compulsory). Come down for a chill time, good music, and our shared love for Spidey!

//EDIT 10 November 2024: Gosh, guys, thank you so much for the enthusiastic response! We are pleased to announce that we have gotten enough sponsorship to set up a large concert stage and projection screen, and will be having two new events lined up for Spideysgiving:

1) Video montage  
  
We’ll be doing a collection for video messages for Spidey! Send in your own video clip to spideysgiving2024@gmail.com, letting us know why you love Spidey and why you stand with him! We’ll put together a short montage of selected entries to be played at the end of Spideysgiving, but will have all the full video messages uploaded to a microsite after the event.

2) Live music  
  
Three bands will be playing covers of your favourite songs as well as some rocking originals all throughout the event! Catch them at the following times:

  * 1PM: The Minstrels of Venice
  * 2PM: Janet and the Web-aboos
  * 3PM: Webslingin’ in the City

See you there!

~

She’s in Math class when the email comes in from FRIDAY – a series of screenshots from street security cameras, zoomed in to show the face of the man MJ now knows is named Gregory Guterman, along with an address.

She, of course, sends it to the group chat immediately, ignoring the suspicious glare from the teacher as she ducks her head to look briefly at the screen of her phone.

mj so tony stark’s ai came through on tracking the source of the broadcasts. [Attachment] this is apparently where they’re broadcasting from. which…. well. twitter jesus so… they’re holed up in BROOKLYN?? the COWARDS?? that’s not within our jurisdiction star wars nerd i mean at least they’re still in NY? and brooklyn isn’t thaaaaaat far like, they could’ve hidden in the catskills twitter jesus ned there’s no wifi in the catskills… star wars nerd i mean you know what i mean mj well, either way we don’t really have a means of doing much to them beyond asking friday to keep an eye on them? like, she’s very powerful but she can’t physically storm the building and take them by surprise or anything. she’s not the police.

The bell rings, then, and MJ hastily shoves her phone into her bag, sweeps her pencils into her pencilcase and heads out of the classroom and to the library. She’s got a free study period, and she’s _almost_ done with taking in the edits and comments on the draft of her article. She’s so close, _so close_, and she can’t help but wonder if the tell-all piece they’ve all been pinning their hopes on will live up to their expectations.

Half an hour or so later, there’s a soft _thud_ as someone sets their books down, pulls out the chair opposite hers.

“Hey, MJ.”

She looks up and it’s Brad, brow creased in a slight frown.

“Hey.”

“Listen,” he says. “I saw the chat. Brooklyn, right?”

MJ raises a brow. “Yes,” she says slowly. “Why? Don’t tell me you’re going to run down to Brooklyn. We can’t pin them with anything now, we’ve got to catch them in the act, which would’ve been hard enough in Queens itself, let alone from a borough away.”

Wordlessly, Brad slides his phone over to her. It’s open to the _Humans of New York_ Facebook page, showing the picture of an unassuming man with a child by his side, the child holding a crayon drawing. The first two comments on the post are, inexplicably, about tacos, and MJ thinks she vaguely recalls seeing the post when it first came out.

“My sister interviewed this man a while ago,” he says. “He’s a police officer in Brooklyn, apparently. _And_ a big fan of Spider-Man. I’m sure if we told him we had a lead, a lead on the guys harassing Spider-Man, he’d help us look into it.”

MJ takes the phone, studies the man’s face, eye-lines creased by kindness and one gentle arm around his son’s shoulders.

“The police don’t help people on a whim,” she says quietly. “Not people who look like you and me.”

“He’ll help,” Brad says, with conviction she doesn't feel. “MJ, listen. This sucks. It sucks for all of us, but for you it sucks most of all. We get it. But you don’t have to do this all alone, you know.”

“I’m not _alone_,” she says dryly, a corner of her mouth tilting up. “I’ve got Brant, and Leeds, and well, you and your sisters. Ms Potts and FRIDAY too.”

“People who care about _Peter_, yes,” he says. “But Spider-Man- Spider-Man belongs to New York, you know. And New York, we protect our own. You _don’t have to do this alone_. New York’s got his back, too.”

She looks at his earnest expression, and then back down at the Facebook post. “You’re sure he’ll agree to help?”

“I’m like, 70% sure,” he says sheepishly. “But it’s worth a try at least, right?”

MJ lets out a breath. “Tell him… Tell him Thanksgiving is coming soon. Something might happen, then.”

Brad smiles. “Will do, chief. I’ll let my sister know.”

~

  


Politics

** _Far From Home: Why The Mysterio Narrative Needs A Second Look_ **

**By Michelle Jones, guest author** | 18 November, 2024

Earlier this summer, New York watched with bated breath as a sudden video broadcast revealed the identity of the city’s most stalwart defender, Spider-Man – and in the same breath, accused him of committing atrocities an ocean away. The surprise broadcast, helmed by an unknown news anchor, revealed footage showing Spider-Man ordering a legion of Stark Industries drones to launch a coordinated attack on London, right before killing Mysterio, a new superhero who had risen to prominence barely a week before.

However, all of this was nothing more than an elaborate charade. Mysterio told the world his story about strange elemental threats from “another world”, effectively cementing his position as the only possible authority on the nature of these creatures.

In Prague this past summer, watching as Mysterio and Spider-Man battled a flaming elemental creature, I watched as an attack on the creature dislodged a strange metallic contraption.

Its purpose? Hologram projection.

[ Embedded: A video of someone handling a battered-looking projector. The person holding it presses a button on the side, and suddenly there is a projection of a fire elemental, roaring as it takes a swipe at an imaginary foe. ]

Trying to look further into what this could mean, my investigation has made three things clear: (a) the elemental threat was never real; (b) ‘Mysterio’ was nothing more than a false cover-story to steal away control of coveted Stark Industries; and (c) Peter Parker, _aka_ Spider-Man, is innocent.

** Read more… **  
  


**Related coverage:**

**Stark Industries CEO announces hacking of employee records, reassures public** 1 day ago

**#Spideysquad: The new social media trend and what it means** 3 days ago

~

@spideywatch Retweeted

> The New York Times @nytimes · 5 hours ago  
“We were so caught up in the excitement of a new superhero, that we forgot to ask ourselves: Who was Mysterio, really?” Guest writer Michelle Jones’ stunning piece on Mysterio, Stark Indutries, and the importance of superhero accountability.

Replying to @nytimes  
spideywatch @spideywatch · 50 minutes ago  
I feel?? SO VINDICATED??

Replying to @spideywatch  
alice @irongirl523 · 46 minutes ago  
lmao she literally said she’s his friend, like, obviously the piece isn’t going to be objective at all

Replying to @irongirl523 @spideywatch  
brienne @oftarth · 45 minutes ago  
actually, if you actually read the article, you’ll realise that it’s actually really objective? like it’s a good clinical look at the evidence available, and she had a lot more evidence than most of us….

spideywatch mod #2 @worldwideweb · 30 minutes ago  
hold up everyone I JUST SAW THIS GET TWEETED OUT AND UM….

> WikiLeaks @wikileaks · 35 minutes ago  
READ the leaked details of Stark Industries employees such as Quentin Beck, ex-hologram specialist, who was fired for mental instability #spiderman

Replying to @worldwideweb  
maisie @sirwincealot · 29 minutes ago  
Yo that’s… that’s Mysterio, isn’t it…

Replying to @worldwideweb  
maisie @sirwincealot · 28 minutes ago  
So that NYT article is true?? All of his story was just a lie?

spideywatch mod #2 @worldwideweb · 28 minutes ago  
sure looks like it sis

brienne @oftarth · 25 minutes ago  
l m a o imagine being so confident in the charade that you’re gonna pull over the whole world that your ONLY disguise was a fishbowl

Replying to @oftarth  
brienne @oftarth · 20 minutes ago  
like i literally photoshopped the wikileaks pic into like a generic cape and armour and… that’s definitely mysterio, lmao  
[ Image ]

CNN Breaking News @cnnbrk · 6 minutes ago  
(Viewer discretion advised) Newly released security footage from outside Europol Headquarters shows Quentin Beck pushing Spider-Man into the path of an oncoming train cnn.it/2k39sO2

ya girl’s going to spideysgiving @webdesign · 4 minutes ago  
what the ACTUAL fuck

> CNN Breaking News @cnnbrk · 6 minutes ago  
(Viewer discretion advised) Newly released security footage from outside Europol Headquarters shows Quentin Beck pushing Spider-Man into the path of an oncoming train cnn.it/2k39sO2

Replying to @webdesign  
spideywatch mod #2 @worldwideweb · 3 minutes ago  
what a BITCH

~

Thanksgiving dawns bright and sunny, and Midtown Park is a sea of red and blue. MJ arrives about an hour after the event starts in a red overshirt over blue jeans, and with Betty and Ned in tow, the latter two carrying tote bags full of juice and sandwiches.

“Brad says he and his sisters came early to get a good spot,” Ned says, fumbling for his phone, and MJ snorts.

“Well, his little sister organized this whole thing,” she says dryly. “I’d be surprised if they _weren’t_ here early.”

Looking for a group of three diminutive Asians in what feels like a crowd of _thousands_ of picnickers, however, is quite another story altogether. MJ is not the most vertically-enhanced of people, and she and Betty spend a good five to ten minutes wandering around on their tiptoes before they hear a shout, and turn to see Brad sitting on a large picnic mat close to the stage that’s been set up, where the first band is setting up. He’s got two girls with him – his sisters, MJ thinks – and the rest of the mat is overflowing with packaged sushi rolls and potato chips and bottles of ice lemon tea.

“MJ, Ned, Betty,” says Brad, pushing aside some potato chip packets so they have space to sit on the brightly-patterned mat. “These are my sisters, Angela and Chloe.”

“I know you,” Betty says to Chloe Davis. “You made the badges, didn’t you?”

Chloe, a girl who looks to be maybe middle-school in age, grins at Betty. Her own shirt sports three #SpideySquad badges, and she’s got a plastic Spider-Man mask on, pushed to the side of her head.

“I’m Badge Girl, yes,” she says. “And Angela’s Facebook Girl. And Brad’s… well.”

“The shame of the Davis family,” Brad says dryly, but he’s smiling as he bumps his shoulder with his sister’s. “Come, Ned, share your spoils with us. I see an egg salad sandwich in your bag that calling my name.”

All in all, it’s a pretty good day. The weather’s cool and crisp, everyone in the park is friendly and also firmly a supporter of Spider-Man, and quite a number of people recognise MJ from the New York Times article and come up for insightful discussions.

Inevitably, things go downhill.

It’s close to the end of the event, as they’re playing the tribute video montage for Spider-Man, Chloe holding up the camera that’s streaming the entire event onto Facebook Live. Halfway through the video, the screen flickers once, twice, and then changes abruptly to the sickeningly familiar newsroom of the _Daily Bugle_.

“Breaking news,” says the harried-looking news anchor, identified on-screen as “J Jonah Jameson”, even as the entire crowd begins to boo as one. “While hooligans have gathered in Queens’ Midtown Park to mindlessly protest in support of their wayward vigilante, the Daily Bugle offices are even now under vicious attack from the man himself.”

The camera pans, and shows Spider-Man swinging around what appears to be the camera crew of the _Daily Bugle_, kicking and punching each of the cameramen and smashing their equipment.

“That’s fake,” MJ says immediately, eyes narrowing. “Peter’s good, but not _that_ good at actually fighting. He’s still a dweeb.”

Angela’s already got her phone out, texting furiously, brow furrowed. MJ pulls out her own phone, finger hovering above Peter’s name on the list of recent calls. The dial tone goes once, twice, thrice, and then stops.

“…MJ?” comes Peter’s voice, tinny through the phone, and she absently puts him on speaker. “What’s up? Aren’t you with family?”

The Spider-Man on screen continues to beat up the crew of the _Daily Bugle_, even as the news anchor begins to yell about violence and renegades. He does not pause to answer a phone, nor appear to speak.

“Peter,” she says, biting her lip. “I know Ms Potts banned you from social media, but- open Facebook. There should be a livestream going on from Midtown Park, right now. One that you need to see.”

“…Huh,” says Peter. She hears clicking of keys in the background, and suddenly the chaos of Spideysgiving can be heard from over the phone. “What- what the hell??”

Dimly, she hears Angela behind her saying something, calling someone on the phone, but MJ isn’t registering it right now. “They’re airing more fake footage of you,” she says. “To discredit you. They’re getting desperate.”

“Because of that article you wrote?” Peter asks, and MJ blinks in surprise. She hadn't thought to tell him about the article, not wanting to worry him about her involvement in this mess – though she supposes that when one writes for the New York Times, one inevitably will have their work widely read.

“Partially,” she allows, and Peter groans.

“The situation’s gotten worse, then,” he says morosely, but there’s a flicker on the screen now, and MJ straightens to attention.

“Wait,” she says. “Peter. Look at the livestream.”

There’s another flicker, and then another, and then suddenly, the figure of Spider-Man beating up a _Daily Bugle_ employee abruptly disappears, leaving behind only a couple of hovering drones, and the wide-eyed visage of a man in glasses behind a laptop.

“Got them!” A voice yells from off-camera, and that’s the last thing MJ hears before two people dressed in NYPD jackets rush in and pin the man to the ground. One of them, she notes, is the man from the Humans of New York post, now leaning over the man as his curly-haired partner snaps on handcuffs.

“I’ve got the other one,” says a voice off-screen, proceeding to recite the Miranda rights at top speed before cutting off halfway in surprise. “Wait- are they _still_ broadcasting?”

“Apparently,” says Facebook man, and he turns around as though trying to figure out which camera to look at. “Hi, Spideysgiving! Thanks for the tip-off.”

There’s movement, and then a pretty Latina cop with hair in a sensible ponytail walks into frame, dragging a handcuffed J Jonah Jameson with her. “Hi,” she says, waving at the wrong camera. “We’re all big fans of Spidey at the precinct-”

Abruptly, the footage cuts off, and suddenly the screen is broadcasting the rest of the tribute video. There’s a stunned heartbeat of silence, before a ragged cheer goes up from the crowd.

“So long, suckers!” one yells, and another calls out, “To Spider-Man!”

“MJ,” says Peter through the phone, voice trembling a little. “What- what is this?”

Around them, the crowd has picked up the cheer enthusiastically, stamping their feet and waving their hands as they yell: _Spidey, Spidey, Spidey_. There’s a sense of relief in watching the hologram programmers behind the _Daily Bugle_ being taken down – the article had been cathartic, but it hadn’t meant much when the culprits were still at large. Now, though, knowing they wouldn’t have been able to resist the urge to do something after their credibility took her hit…

_Bait, set, and trap_, she thinks.

Out loud, she lifts the phone to her lips, says: “This is New York, Peter. Just your friendly neighbourhood, looking out for the little superhero.”

There’s a sniffle. “You guys,” says Peter, but his voice is muffled, and she can just imagine him with tears welling up in his eyes, pressing his shirtsleeve to his mouth to hide the trembling of his lips.

MJ watches the crowd cheer as the video montage comes to an end, watches as Chloe Davis dashes up to take the mic. “You’re not alone, Peter,” she says. “You’ve got all of us, now, watching your back.”

~

It’s late fall, the leaves red and gold and brown slowly beginning to fall off the branches, when the Mysterio Mess begins to die down, a bad summer-long nightmare that’s slowly begun to fade like a healing bruise. One Saturday, a knock comes at MJ’s front door while the rest of her family are out, and she frowns.

She’s gotten a little more prominence since the New York Times article – nothing terribly distracting, but certainly enough to make her wary of unexpected visitors knocking on the front door. She reaches for the baseball bat next to her bed, and creeps down the stairs.

Before she can think, a face peeks in from the front window, and on instinct she swings the bat, only for her mind to belatedly register familiar curly hair and wide brown eyes, forcing her muscles to tense so that the bat stops right before smashing into the glass.

(There’s a strong sense of _déjà vu_, but MJ ignores it.)

She scrambles for the front door, unlocking it with suddenly-shaky fingers, and it’s Peter, standing on her front step, dressed in his skinny jeans and nerdy T-shirt with a chemistry pun on it. She dimly registers that Happy Hogan is standing at the roadside next to a black car, but then he’s stumbling the few steps to her, falling into her arms and burying his head into the crook of her neck.

“I’m back,” he mumbles into her skin, and she valiantly pretends a little part of her isn’t melting on the inside. (She’s failing.) She lifts her hand to his curls, pats the back of his head comfortingly.

“Welcome home,” she says, and he pulls back to grin at her. “I can't believe you almost tried to brain me with a baseball bat,” he says cheekily, and she groans.

“Dweeb,” she says fondly, and no amount of fortnightly weekend trips can make up for how he feels in her arms now, warm and solid and _there_.

“Missed you too.”

Her free hand clenches for a moment, fisting the soft material of his shirt. “Let’s never do that again,” she says, and he laughs. “That was _awful_.”

“Well,” he says. “You’ve got my back this time, so I’m in good hands.”

_You are loved, Peter_, she wants to say, _the whole city knows now, what a good and kind person you are_. She wants to tell him about how even now, Humans of New York is overflowing with stories of people whose lives Spider-Man has touched. She wants to tell him about the people who’ve started donating to charities, helping out the homeless, all in Spider-Man’s name – helping out the city one person at a time, just like Spider-Man himself would do. _This entire city has your back now_, she wants to say. _You’re ours. We won’t be fooled so easily a second time._

But he’s here, back for good, and she knows he’s been catching up on everything he’s missed, knows that he’s seen all this happening, so she swallows it all back instead, rests her chin briefly on his head.

“Don’t you worry,” she says instead. “I’m not going anywhere.”

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> gosh, i swear i started to write this fic immediately after far from home, but work commitments meant i'm only finishing this up now. better late than never i guess? i just really needed to fix the awful ending of FFH, and this is where we ended up.
> 
> as far as possible, multimedia bits have been formatted according to how they appear in RL. for the avoidance of doubt, OP does not intend to diminish the importance of wikileaks' work through their portrayal in this fic.
> 
> for anyone who wants to try it for themselves, the mug brownie recipe peter uses is [this one from buzzfeed's tasty](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmVXLM97YL0) \- i'm aware tasty isn't the best for, well, great recipes but, eh, peter's a high school kid who doesn't cook often, he'd probably rely on tasty as his first port of call anyway. 
> 
> brad's race is left a little ambiguous in the movie, but remy hii, his actor, is of malaysian-chinese descent, so that's what i've gone with for the fic. (as far as i know, the rest of brad's family is not really mentioned in canon, so i've taken some creative liberties here.) if you've noticed that his family's naming scheme appears to have gone down the alphabet - this is normal. i've had a bunch of friends whose siblings' names also run in alphabetical order according to age.
> 
> OP does not actually live in new york, but has tried her best with researching the various locations referred to, with one exception - midtown park, like midtown high, is fictional.


End file.
